What’s up y’all, my name is Carlton Perry but most just call me Carl. I am a sophomore music business major here at West Virginia University. On top of that, I am the CEO and founder of CLEF, a mobile app where venues and event organizers can hire musicians for their event or occasion.
What Made You Want to be an Entrepreneur?
I have always believed that I am here for a greater purpose like changing the world or people's lives. As long as I am doing that I am fine and it just happens to be in entrepreneurship. I really just like helping people.
How Has Studying Music and Business Played a Role in Your Business?
The majority of my life I have been a musician, I graduated from a performing arts school. I played piano and have sung for my entire life, I don’t know, I have always just had a knack for doing business. I’ve always been a salesman; in school I used to sell shoes and candy. I thought why not just combine those two and see where it takes me.
What Does it Feel Like to Pitch?
I feel like talking to people honestly comes so naturally to me. I just like talking to big groups of people, but you know that you’ll be nervous and you have to use that energy to fuel whatever you’re going to take in your mission and know that you’re there for a reason.
How the LaunchLab has Helped
I have been coming to the LaunchLab since the fall semester of my freshman year and I am a sophomore now. So since I got to college. There have been some hard times honestly, and Allen was there for me, just the moral support and all of the staff being so dedicated to helping their entrepreneurs means so much. Even to have this safe space to come whenever you need to relax, need help, or need to connect with somebody, it’s amazing.
Future Advice for Entrepreneurs
Whatever business you are about doing, do not do it for the money. If your only goal is to make money, you are going to fail immediately. You need to have a greater purpose on why you are doing what you’re doing because if you’re talking to an investor, they’ll know if you're only doing it for the money. Hard times will come, and say when they do that, you’re only doing it for the money and you’re broke, it is going to be easier for you to quit. You are going to look at the situation and ask yourself “Why am I doing this? I really don’t even want to do this.”. You have to make sure that you love what you are doing because hard and crazy times are going to come.
Hard Times
We have been in business for a year, and we are still developing our app. One of the things that really came about was not being accepted in the pitch competitions or finding funding. For so long we were just trying to find it. My message to the reader is to keep going. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. If you really want to make it work and have a vision, what’s stopping you.
How do You Balance the Blend of the Tech and Music Worlds?
It gets easier because we live in the world of AI now and everybody is more focused on technology in general. I think that each year as we progress music and technology slowly starts to integrate with itself. Technology is in everything now.
Link tree in the bio at
clefapp.net, sign up for the early access for the app. For the first year we
are going to be launching in Pittsburgh and Morgantown. Follow @clefappofficial on Instagram and @clefapp on TikTok to stay up to date with the app.